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The Passion as Pragmatism

"If you have to give a carnival to get people to come to church, then you will have to keep giving carnivals to keep them coming back."

Charles Spurgeon.

“There is a … way of being conformed to this world in one’s thinking, and this is found even in the realm of evangelism. It is very subtle. The apostle’s exhortation, remember, means: Do not allow yourself to be controlled by the outlook and thinking of this world, apart from Christ and without the Spirit. What, then, about a kind of evangelism which says, ‘Modern men and women no longer like preaching and long services, but they do like films. So don’t preach, especially long sermons, but show films’. What about that? The world says, ‘We like everything to be bright and breezy. We don’t like solemnity. We don’t like too much seriousness’.

So what about an evangelism which says: ‘Well now, that’s what the world likes. It likes colour and glamour and a lot of singing. It doesn’t like too much reasoning but it does like stories and illustrations, so let’s give people that.’ Is not this conforming to the world? The moment you allow the world – men and women without the Spirit and without Christ – the moment you set them up as a standard… you have already violated this principle.

Here, again, of course, we must not go to extremes. Somebody may think that I am arguing for solemnity or a lack of liveliness, or a miserable, droning service. I am doing nothing of the sort. All I am saying is that if you once grant the principle that people who are not Christians are to control your message or your method, then you are conforming to this world.”

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans (Exposition of Chapter 12 – Christian Conduct) p 80

God may use this film in his saving purposes. Should we therefore promote it because God has been pleased to use it? Thinking of that sort is very dubious. God was pleased to use a verse from the Apocrypha in the salvation of John Bunyan – should we therefore elevate the Apocrypha to a place of prominence in our churches? Simply because God can use something doesn't mean that we should.